One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Beach Week: Day of the Dolphin (1973)

Most of the movies I am reviewing
during Beach Week this year concern sea animals attacking and killing people.

Although many of those movies are
indeed terrific, perhaps the focus on “terror” reveals how difficult it is to
craft a movie about the wonders of the sea, instead.

The
Day of the Dolphin
(1973) is just such a film. It is a thoughtful
and highly-emotional science fiction movie that explores the connection between
man and dolphin, and wears its heart on its sleeve.

And
for this crime, the movie has long-been ridiculed.

Critic
Pauline Kael called The Day of the Dolphin “the most expensive Rin Tin Tin movie ever made, with a gimmick the Rin Tin Tin
pictures never stooped to: the dolphins here are dubbed with plaintive,
childish voices and speak in English.” (5001 Nights at the Movies, Holt Paperbacks, 1982, page 175.)

The
Village Voice’s
Michael Atkinson, meanwhile dubbed The Day of the Dolphin “absurdly
earnest.”

He
may be right. The Day of the Dolphin is absurdly earnest to its core…but I’ll
take that quality over ones like “crassly cynical,” or “blatant cash grab” any
day of the week.

The
fact of the matter is that this 1973 film -- much like its dolphin co-stars --
today seems absolutely without guile.

And that quality makes for powerful contrast with
the film’s human villains, and also with the species called “movie reviewers” too.

At a secret, privately-run
research facility by the sea, a team of scientists led by Dr. Jacob Terrell (George
C. Scott) attempt to teach the first dolphin born into captivity, Alpha, to
speak.

When Alpha grows uncooperative
and bored with his learning, a female dolphin, Beta, becomes his
companion. As Dr. Terrell grows closer
to announcing his breakthrough in human/dolphin communication to the world,
however, a dark conspiracy is hatched in secret.

The dolphins are captured and taken
away from the facility. On the sea, they
are trained to plant mines on boats…a task that will be used in an
assassination attempt targeting the President of the United States.

Now Terrell must rescue the
dolphins, stop their mission, and teach his wards that not all human beings can
be trusted…

Many
science fiction films of the 1970s deal with mankind’s always-changing
relationship with animals, those fellow creatures he shares the Earth with.

I
wrote that the relationship is “ever changing,” and that process of change
involves the boundaries of man’s science and knowledge. As he better understands himself and the
world, mankind’s understanding of animals -- and responsibility for them -- also changes.

The
Planet
of the Apessequels of the early
1970s directly involve mankind’s uneasy relationship with a close mammal cousin,
and the fight for dominion. Mike Nichol’s The Day of the Dolphin concerns
another highly intelligent inhabitant of the Earth -- the dolphin -- and asks
the question: is dolphin-kind better off learning from us at our current stage
of development, or should it remain far, far away from 20th century human
beings all together?

The
Day of the Dolphin
centers on a character played by George C. Scott named Dr. Jake Terrell. As the film opens, we see him lecturing about
dolphin intelligence and communication to a rapt audience, and later, we seem
him playing God, of a sort, at his marine research institute.

There,
he is the father figure for Alpha, the first dolphin raised in captivity. He makes the decisions for Alpha, teaching
him linguistics and semantics, and demanding obedience.

When
Alpha won’t obey, Terrell separates him from his mate/companion, the dolphin
Beta, and the film depicts a heart-breaking scene of Alpha banging at a door
plate, attempting to reach her. He doesn’t
understand being punished.

Finally,
realizing that humans hold all the cards, Alpha obeys Terrell’s edicts. He
submits. While hoping to teach the animals important human qualities, Terrell
seems to lack one himself: compassion.
All he has taught Alpha is that man is “the boss.”

As
the film continues, however, the audience detects a change in Terrell. When he encounters those who would more
cruelly exploit Alpha and Beta -- for purposes of political assassination, no
less -- he sees the error of his ways.

“We should become like them…instinct and
energy,” Terrell muses at one point.
He wonders explicitly why he has sought to re-cast the dolphins in terms
of human standards and learning.
Furthermore, he realizes what a disservice he has done them.

“They trust us more than their own instincts,”
he realizes. “They’ve never been lied to…”

The
Day of the Dolphin
ends with Terrell making the ultimate parental sacrifice for his wards, to whom
he has done wrong.

He
is cruel, on purpose, to the dolphins, and thus knowingly drives them
away….never to see them again.

He
knows they will be used badly by mankind again, and can’t let it happen. But
they do not understand why he rejects them now.
They have no basis for understanding, and are without guile.

The
last several minutes of the film will make audiences weep as the dolphins call after
Jake in despair, and it takes every ounce of courage and resolve for him to
reject and ignore their entreaties. In
this case, as Jake realizes, the dolphins are better off without human
interference, better off hating humans, even.

Even
outside the commentary on humans and how they treat animals, the film works as
a metaphor for parenting, for children and adults. At some point, the children must walk (or
swim) alone, and indulgence or assistance will do no further good.

Some
children won’t learn that lesson from gentleness and softness. Sometimes the
lesson has to be hard, and that is a heartbreaking thing for everyone involved.

The
Day of the Dolphin
dramatizes its emotional tale with a minimum of obvious fakery, and the scenes
of affection between Scott and the dolphins feel incredibly real, and therefore
touching. The scenes of Terrell and
Alpha together, learning from one another, showing each other affection,
represent the best angels of human nature: mankind’s capacity to reach out to
other beings in peace and love.

In
keeping with the Watergate context of the era, however, the film also offers a
yang to that yin. The movie very
deliberately charts a conspiracy, and notes that it is no longer possible to “trust the good old establishment.”

On
the contrary, the establishment here resorts to bugging the marine research center
and stonewalling the public about real intentions. The final end game for this
group of conspirators is the murder of the President of the United States. The dolphins are but mere pawns in such a
plot.

At
its most basic level, The Day of the Dolphin emotionally
explores the simple interrogative that Terrell asks of Alpha.

“Why is man good?”

One
possible answer is that man, as in the case of Jake, has the ability to step
back from his self-centered, petty concerns, learn from his mistakes, and make
good decisions…decisions that benefit others.

But oppositely, The Day of the Dolphinalso
suggests that the “good old establishment” is always going to exploit new
science and new technology for anti-social reasons, and that those caught in
the middle are, often, complete innocents, like Alpha and Beta.

As
my introduction suggests, The Day of the Dolphin didn’t win
many great reviews on its release in theaters in 1973, but it nonetheless
impresses on an emotional level.

Not
only as a time-capsule of the Watergate Era, and the dawn of conspiracies in
the science fiction cinema, but as a film that intelligently ponders human
nature and behavior.

When
we are going to become “good” parents not just to our own biological children,
but to the beings we share this world with?

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About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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